Alfred Adler, the founder of the School of Individual Psychology, claims that most of the emotions and behaviors that can be considered “natural” are based on a malicious basis, while Arthur Schopenhauer argues that “a creature that can torture for pleasure” cannot be good. So, is human inherently evil?
It is clear that human beings, who for centuries have been at war with other communities and tearing their countless kin from the world, even with the sole desire to conquer and rule, are more prone to evil than good. According to Adler, a person whose good features and emotions predominate (such as joy, pity, generosity) is also a person who is prone to sociability. The malevolent feature that Adler particularly emphasizes in his work, The Art of Getting to Know the Human, in which he examines human psychology in depth, is the feeling of smugness that hides itself with many benevolent masks. The main reason for this tendency, which he also calls the sense of superiority, is actually trying to overcome the feeling of inferiority. Adler expressly states that all kinds of personality traits are formed by the external factors in the child’s environment between the ages of 0-6.
Arthur Schopenhauer, who sees the world as a design of his own will, that is, the greedy power that governs us, emphasizes that a creature that can torture others just for pleasure cannot be good in its essence. However, it is also possible for a person to avoid this evil in himself. The emotion that Schopenhauer attaches the most importance here is compassion and actually empathy. He emphasizes that it is very easy for us to hate the person in front of us, but if we try to empathize with him and try to understand his pain, our relationship will be healthier.
He claims that all human behavior stems from an inner drive, the Will, and that one cannot attain happiness unless one succeeds in suppressing it. Because as long as we are overcome by our will, nothing we achieve will satisfy us, and we will struggle in the grip of our insatiable greed and greed.
In Turkish, we say that a wrestler who is defeated cannot get enough of wrestling.